So my warrior has 5 ranks in both SHIELD BASH and SHIELD CHARGE, but I'm thinking about unlearning charge before getting the next fixskills and putting those points elsewhere cause I never use it.

The desc claims it gives an improved chance at knockdowns, stuns, etc... but I really don't notice a dramatic enough difference between charge and bash to make the extra RT worth it. Bash rarely fails to put a critter on the floor (either seated or prone), if it's the only critter in the room my weapon will have it stunned as soon as I swing it and if it's not I want the shorter RT to keep moving so I can deal with whatever else is there.

Has anyone found a situation where CHARGE is a better choice then BASH or a reason why it would be preferable?

Starchitin

A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.

>Has anyone found a situation where CHARGE is a better choice then BASH or a reason why it would be preferable?

Its used to be better than Bash back when they were CMans, but my impression of the Shield version is the same as yours. Its identical to Bash as far as I can tell, just with extra RT for the user. I do wonder if there's a bug from the switchover and it is actually using the same code as bash now.

The pre-req ranks for trample are a must have. Some critters (I've seen it in Reim, I'm not sure about any elsewhere) use charge instead of bash, so there are defensive reasons to get more ranks if you have points to spare. But for actual offensive use, forget it.

These days I use trample all the time. Minotaur Magus I think was the last critter that was a contender for me using bash on. I use bash and charge for RP reasons, but if its a serious threat, trample every time.

>What kind of RT can I expect from it with a greatshield?

Trample? Takes 5s to use, gives 5-10s depending on endroll with 10s at 150 and up. Same RT profile as sweep, but success rolls are a lot easier to get so it works out much better in practice than sweep does. You can't use it to keep a room under control indefinitely, the RT it gives is too short for that, but if they are all going to be stunned after the mstrike ... or you need to wait for a critter to stance itself by standing before hitting it anyway ... or there's always warcry bellow all if I do need to put more RT on a trampled room.

Thanks for the info, everyone. In general, putting critters into RT is just an added perk so long as a CMAN/SHIELD maneuver either stuns them or makes them prone. Unless a critter gets lucky, my follow up attack will ensure they're not going to be in a condition to do much of anything.

Now I just need to grumble that I can't use my awesome spiked shield that can't be blessed since I had it made into a morphing shield. Gonna be about 20 levels before I can pull that out of the locker and start using it again:(

Maybe someone on PC will post a spiked shield for sale I can use in the meantime.

Starchitin

A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.

That listing is three years old.... it's a nice shield though.

Starchitin

A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.

>Trample RT is always 5 seconds. At least it is for me. I don't know if stats play into RT determination, but encumberance doesn't, (it impacts your odds of success instead).

That was my impression too. Some manoevers have different minimum RT when used by critters on players, but I would have expected player vs. player testing to give the same numbers as player vs. critter use. On the other hand, the way I use it I'm hardly ever giving a critter that took only 3s from it a chance to stand up inside my RT, and there'd normally be massive scroll when I was, so critters could have taken 3s from it without me noticing.

The real beauty with trample isn't that you've given them 3-8 seconds of RT, it's that you've done that, AND their prone. You can effectively take 5 critters out of the battle, and deal with them in the order that suits you best. Coupled with a high success rate if you're 3x trained, and it is a very effective crowd control tool for normal day to day hunting. It's not going to help you control an invasion crowd of 20+ critters, but it's pretty effective in day to day hunting.

You pay for all this yummy goodness with a lot of prereq's, but you definitely are getting a nice payoff for spending the points beyond bash or charge.

Kerl